Tesla just updated its shareholders on its progress bringing its Optimus humanoid robot to market, seeking to calm nerves amid controversy.
Elon Musk’s heavy involvement with the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has triggered backlash that’s increasingly affecting Tesla’s bottom line. Investors are concerned Musk’s DOGE activities are distracting him from his leadership role as the EV maker’s stock value has fallen more than 40 percent this year.
Backlash has been mounting since Musk took on an active role in Trump’s 2024 campaign. As DOGE seeks to dramatically reduce the size of the US federal government, Tesla dealerships and charging stations have been targeted by arsonists and vandals. Onboard cameras have caught activists damaging personal Tesla vehicles, leading to serious charges. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the acts “domestic terrorism.”
In London, climate activists poured orange liquid latex over an early Optimus prototype on display at a dealership. The protestors, a 74-year-old Catherine Rennie Nash and 63-year-old Nigel Fleming, are from Just Stop Oil, which is demanding that the UK government phase out fossil fuels by 2030.
“Billionaire Elon Musk likes to punch down,” Nash said in a statement after her arrest. “Instead of using his wealth to help solve the climate crisis, reduce world hunger or find a cure for cancer, he is throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of work, jeopardizing climate science and denying healthcare to vulnerable people.”
On Fox News, Musk said he’s shocked and disturbed by what’s happening.
“You know, Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring, and yet they’re burning down cars, they’re firebombing dealerships, they’re firing bullets into dealerships,” he said.
To address growing concerns among shareholders, Musk took the unusual step of livestreaming an impromptu all hands meeting.
During the hourlong session, Musk emphasized Tesla’s ongoing progress in artificial intelligence and robotics. He said he remains bullish on humanoid robots, predicting that the Tesla Bot will increase the manufacturer’s profits by trillions.
“Tesla is the leader in real-world AI,” he said. “What we learned in the car, we translate to the Optimus robot. We also take our expertise in electric motors and batteries, power electronics, structural design, and then another major thing is that we’re very good at manufacturing.”
He added: “In order for robots to be useful, they have to be intelligent, they have to be able to do useful things just by asking, and you have to be able to make a large number of them at an affordable price.”
Musk said Tesla Bots are currently being built in Fremont, with plans to scale production at Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory. The Optimus robots coming off the production line now feature new hands with 22 degrees of freedom (DoF), doubling the dexterity of the Generation 2 design.
Tesla aims to manufacture 5,000 Optimus humanoids by the end of 2025 and scale to 50,000 in 2026. The target is down from Musk’s previous stated goal of 10,000 robots during the last investors’ call. However, Musk admitted at the time the target was highly aspirational.”
“Will we success in building 10,000 exactly by the end of December this year? Probably not,” he said in the January call. “Will we succeed in making several thousand? Yes, I think we will. Will those several thousand Optimus robots be doing useful things by the end of the year? Yes, I’m confident they will.”
Tesla is positioning Optimus as a general-purpose robot that can do everything from household chores to industrial tasks to social companionship. It uses Tesla’s real-world AI to understand and react to its surroundings.
Musk first announced the Tesla Bot concept during the company’s 2021 AI Day event. He was joined by a person in a costume dancing on stage. The first Optimus prototype emerged the following year and in 2023 Tesla unveiled a second-generation iteration with a slimmer design, improved hands, and more human-like movements. By 2024, Tesla ramped up hiring for the humanoid robotics program and a limited number of robots began doing light work at the automaker’s Gigafactory in California.
In the last few years, the emerging market has transformed dramatically.
In the US, Tesla faces stiffening competition. Silicon Valley-based Figure AI recently announced its BotQ robot factory for scaling production of its next-generation humanoids. The company is aiming to manufacture 10,000 robots a year from the plant.
1X Technologies, which operates out of California and Norway, has similar lofty goals. The startup’s NEO Gamma humanoid robot generated buzz at NVIDIA’s GTC 2025 conference, where the robot gifted founder Jensen Huang a custom leather jacket. 1X plans to deploy a limited number of robots to real homes this year as it moves toward mass production.
Other perceived leaders like Apptronik, Agility Robotics, and Boston Dynamics are also accelerating the development of their humanoids with help from the GPU maker. There’s also a growing number of Chinese firms like Unitree Robotics, EngineAI, UBTECH, and AgiBot that are announcing new breakthroughs nearly every day.
However, Musk maintains that Tesla is best positioned to scale production of humanoids.
“The only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale is Tesla. This is a super big deal,” he said. “My prediction is that … Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. Nothing will even be close. It’ll be 10x bigger than the next biggest product ever made.”
Musk said Tesla employees will get first access, probably in the second half of 2026. He said “you’ll want to invite your friends over and say check this out” but there will also probably be bugs. Tesla aims to eventually offer the robot for around the price of a modest vehicle, but it’ll likely be much pricier before production is scaled.
On US Sen. Ted Cruz’s podcast, Musk predicted there will be billions of humanoid robots in use in a decade. With so many robots, he said, goods and services will be nearly free. He said, by then, Tesla Bots will be highly customizable with “snap-on cosmetic parts.”